Tuesday, November 19, 2013

End Of Big Alliances In Iraq’s 2014 Election?

Iraq’s last three elections for
parliament were characterized by large alliances running for office. In 2005
for example all the religious Shiite parties and some smaller entities ran
together as the United Iraqi Alliance and walked away with the most seats in
the two votes held that year. Now Iraqi politics appear to be going through a
progression as some major players have announced that they will run alone in
the 2014 balloting. This might be a positive change for the country as lists
are attempting to form their own individual identity rather than running in
large coalitions where many different parties with different agendas held loose
and often unwieldy alliances.

Two major lists from the 2010
vote, and perhaps a third have broken up. In the last parliamentary election
there were four large coalitions that collected the vast majority of votes.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had his State of Law led by his Dawa and Deputy
Premier Hussein Shahristani’s Independents. The Sadrists and Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq (ISCI) formed the National Alliance. The Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) were part of the
Kurdish Alliance. Finally Iyad Allawi, Tariq Hashemi, Rafi Issawi, Osama and
Atheel Nujafi, Saleh al-Mutlaq and others created the Iraqi National Movement
(INM). The National Alliance and the National Movement are now no more, there
have been reports that the Independents might leave State of Law, while the
Kurdish parties are debating whether to run together or separately. Back in
October 2013, Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National List said that it would run alone in
2014. That was just stating the obvious as the INM had already come apart
earlier in the year. Now Parliament Speaker Osama Nujafi’s Mutahidun, Deputy
Premier Saleh al-Mutlaq’s Iraqi National Dialogue Front, and Jamal Karbuli’s
Solution Movement will all run separately. In November, a spokesman for the Supreme Council and a parliamentarian from the Sadr bloc separately
announced that they would be independent parties in 2014 marking the end of
their National Alliance. Both claimed that the new electoral law did not favor
large lists, and that’s what led to their decision. After the 2013 provincial
vote the Sadrists claimed they had a strategic alliance with ISCI that would
continue into next year’s election. That came after the two worked together
to depose State of Law from several provinces such as Basra and Baghdad. Those
two will likely cooperate after the election, but beforehand they will be
separate. Maliki’s list may split as well. There was a report that
Shahristani’s Independents is considering running separately. That party
wants more seats, but State of Law lost standing in the 2013 election, which is
making the Independents reconsider its alliance. At the same time, the Badr
Organization is going to maintain its ties with Maliki. Badr joined State
of Law for this year’s balloting. Finally, there are the Kurdish parties, which
are trying to go in the other direction. In 2010 the PUK and KDP maintained
their traditional alliance, but the three opposition parties, the Change List,
the Kurdistan Islamic Union, and the Kurdistan Islamic Group went it alone. Now
the KDP and PUK are trying to get them to all compete together. The Islamic
Group has expressed tentative support for the idea saying that all the Kurdish
parties need to run together in provinces with disputed areas like Tamim
otherwise the Kurdish vote would be split. The Change List and Islamic Union
however have accused the PUK and KDP of cheating in the 2013 election, and
therefore are standoffish on any grand Kurdish list. That might mean the
Kurdish Alliance is the only surviving major list left in 2014, but it will not
be expanding. If this trend continues it will be an important change for Iraqi
politics. Having these large lists was only meant to pool votes to gain power
rather than bringing together like-minded parties. Dawa, the Supreme Council,
and the Sadrists all had opposing views yet they joined together in 2005 under
the United Alliance. Likewise the PUK and KDP still have different opinions
about the future of Kurdistan and the country in general yet they are trying to
keep up a united front for 2014. At the minimum parties running alone will
provide the public with more choices next year.

Iraq’s government is still
developing. At first, many divergent parties banded together usually on ethnosectarian
grounds to get as many votes as possible. Now the lists appear to be going in
the other direction. Many parties are still personal vehicles for their leaders
rather than real political organizations, but developing their own individual
messages and programs is an important change. More importantly there is no
longer one large Shiite list, one large Sunni list, one large Kurdish list. Now
there’s State of Law, the Sadrists, the Supreme Council, Fadhila, Mutahidun,
the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, the Iraqi National List, the Change List,
etc. to all pick from. That doesn’t mean communal based politics is dead, but
it is a step away from it, which can only be a positive for the country’s
future.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com